ICBC can’t allow the police to use its facial-recognition software to catch Stanley Cup rioters — or any other suspect — without a court order, the province’s privacy watchdog ruled Thursday.
While the Vancouver police declined the Insurance Corp. of B.C.’s offer to help with the riot investigation, Elizabeth Denham released a report that says the agency has allowed police to access its database in the past — a practice she concluded violates provincial privacy laws and raises important questions about the use of sensitive biometric data.
Soon after the riot, ICBC offered to help Vancouver police by using its facial-recognition software to match photographs of rioters with names in its database.
The corporation offered to run a photo of a rioter through its system and let police know whether there was a match. If there was, ICBC proposed police would then require a court order to see the results.
But Denham says even that violates privacy laws, which say public bodies can only use information about citizens for the purpose it was originally collected for.
In this case, Denham says ICBC collected photos for detecting and preventing driver’s-licence fraud, which means it is prohibited from using them for any other purpose, including aiding law enforcement.
Denham says her office identified 15 instances in which ICBC received requests to use its facial-recognition software to identify a suspect.
In at least one of those cases, Denham’s report says, ICBC handed over the possible identity of a suspect.
“They ran the information and disclosed it to the police without a subpoena or a court order,” Denham said.
Denham also says ICBC hadn’t adequately informed the public that it was using facial-recognition software internally and recommended the agency better communicate that to its customers.
ICBC spokesman Adam Grossman noted the agency had yet to provide any information to riot investigators, and he says all of Denham’s recommendations will be adopted.
Denham says the use of what she described as biometric information should be treated with special care.
“The (biometric) information is our most sensitive type of information,” she said.
“It’s not just somebody’s name and their address. It’s their image — it’s themselves. And in that case, the state should have very stringent rules and stringent controls about how that data can be used.”
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
About The Reporter
